Chapter 8: A friendly ember
The morning preparation was taking them less and less time, today they managed to leave the safehouse half an hour after waking up, gods know they needed the additional time.
As they travelled further and further, their surroundings slowly changed - the vines on the ground gradually thinned, until they disappeared completely.
They even began seeing trees and bushes every now and then, dried and withered of course, but it was still a bit surprising. The fauna also got more diverse, but fortunately for them most creatures were small, and no more dangerous than a stray dog.
Not that there were no threats - there were plenty of creatures that could kill them in a fraction of a second.
The sparse vegetation turned out to be very helpful in avoiding the biggest predators - by moving from tree to tree they could significantly reduce their time in the open.
It turned out they weren’t the only ones who came up with that idea.
As they were hiding under a particularly large tree, two small shadows fell from the branches above.
They were locked in a fierce battle - claws, teeth and spikes were slicing, cutting an puncturing.
One of the creatures a very large rat, with two tails, additional pair of legs and a set of sharp bone-like spikes growing out of its spine
The other was reptilian in nature - it resembled a big lizard, but not any particular kind. Its facial features were firmly somewhere between ’cute’ and ’predatory’, the first part was accentuated by its big golden eyes - the second, by the spikes on its jaw and back of the head.
Its scales were black, but iridescent, making the creature appear mysterious and regal.
The strangest thing about it was that it felt... different than any of the other creature they encountered so far, the ever present feeling of corruption just wasn’t there.